Peter stood beneath a streetlamp, hands buried in his pockets, eyes scanning casually over the passing cars and pedestrians.
The Bennetson neighborhood was known as one of the worst corners of Brooklyn.
Theft ran rampant, drugs and smuggling were common.
With its dense immigrant population, the area was a melting pot of every race and culture imaginable, which only added to the chaos and made law enforcement all but impossible.
Whoosh!
A Lexus tore past him, engine screaming, not even bothering to slow down.
Tugging the brim of his baseball cap lower, Peter's expression didn't change. He continued waiting patiently for a fish to bite.
Beating up a few street punks wouldn't net him much.
He didn't know the locations of gang headquarters, so the only option was to "wait by the tree stump for rabbits"—lurking until prey stumbled into his path.
And in a place as "simple and honest" as this neighborhood, he figured it wouldn't take long before some gangsters came by.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, a rattling old pickup truck came clanging down the road.
The driver spotted Peter standing by the roadside with his cap pulled low, slowed down a little to size him up—then hit the gas again, honking mockingly as he roared past.
Out the window came flying a fast-food cup emblazoned with the logo "Fry King Chicken."
It hit the ditch behind him with a thud.
The driver's wild laughter faded into the night along with the truck.
Peter's face didn't change as he watched it vanish.
But soon, the pickup's tail lights flared red.
With a sudden screech, it braked, then backed up into the shoulder.
Two young men jumped out, swaggering toward Peter with crooked grins.
One had mop-like blond hair; the other was short, fat, and freckled.
"Nice car," Peter said with a slight frown. "Shame it leaks wind. Aren't you worried about catching cold?"
"This is my old man's ride," Blondie answered, stepping closer.
The short one circled behind, hemming Peter in.
Front and back, they boxed him in.
"I'm looking to buy some… 'lube.' Quite a lot of it. You got any?"
(Lube: street slang for dope, marijuana.)
Peter had pegged them as punks from the start, so he cut straight to the point.
"Whoa, bro, I like the way you talk."
Blondie coughed, exchanged a quick glance with Freckles behind Peter, then asked, "You got cash?"
"Of course."
Peter casually pulled two thick stacks of bills from his pocket and waved them in front of their faces.
"Will this do?"
Naturally, a high schooler like Peter couldn't possibly have that kind of money.
The bundles were fakes—only the top and bottom bills were real. The rest were just paper cut to size.
In the dim night light, it was enough to fool them. In broad daylight, the ruse would never hold up.
The punks never imagined he'd try such a stunt. To them, he looked like a fat sheep waiting to be sheared.
Blondie had half a mind to just rob him outright—but Peter's eyes, his aura, carried something dangerous. It gave him pause.
What if this guy has a gun?
He regretted not bringing his father's pistol tonight.
If he had, he wouldn't have needed this charade.
"You'd better not be messing with us. If you are, you'll regret it—badly."
After his face shifted through several expressions, Blondie finally made a decision.
He would take Peter to see the boss.
As for the chance that he was a cop?
Please. He'd never seen an undercover try a scam like this before.
Vroom!
Peter climbed into the pickup. Blondie drove, Freckles sat beside him in the back.
That they hadn't tried robbing him was almost disappointing.
Peter's plan had been to beat them half to death, then force them to give up their hideout. Instead, they'd held back.
"So," Peter asked, gazing out the window at the scenery whipping by, "where are we headed?"
"Hell's Kitchen. That's where we keep most of our stash. You can buy as much as you want there."
Blondie replied smoothly.
"Which gang are you with? Triads? Serpents?"
"Neither. We're Hand. Don't mix us up with those northern Triad geezers—they're the ones we bend over."
The Hand, again?
Peter frowned.
The gang that tried to kidnap Gwen last time had been Hand.
And now these two clowns were with the Hand as well.
It seemed fate kept circling him back to them.
After last night's fight, Peter had looked them up online.
Information was sparse: they were active in Midtown and Hell's Kitchen, once implicated in illegal shell trading.
Nothing too unusual—at least on the surface.
Peter was about to press further when the pickup wound its way through side streets and into the infamous Hell's Kitchen.
Screech!
The truck stopped in front of a two-story apartment building.
The night wind howled, and both men hunched their shoulders against the cold.
"Damn weather!"
Cursing under their breath, they led Peter upstairs.
Blondie had already called ahead, so there was no stalling. They opened the door and led him in.
The wide hall inside was deathly silent.
No lights. Darkness swallowed the room whole.
Only Blondie's voice broke the stillness, along with the wailing wind outside.
"Boss?"
He scratched his head, puzzled. "Weird… he just told me on the phone he'd be waiting here."
Peter, standing behind them, furrowed his brow.
The heavy stench of blood filled his nostrils.
After the slaughter at the Alien Research Facility, he knew exactly what that meant.
Something deep inside him stirred—the predator's instinct.
The alien embryo within him awakened that primal sense.
Xenomorphs, in some ways, were like Spider-Man's kin among aliens.
Silent hunters, they closed in on prey without warning, striking from the shadows.
With strength that defied reason, they could even sense danger through the flow of air itself.
Now, as that instinct surged through him, Peter vanished from sight in a blink.
Blondie swallowed hard, exchanged a nervous glance with Freckles.
Both saw the same unease reflected in each other's eyes.
He turned back—Peter was gone.
The unease became panic.
"Damn it! Where'd he go?"
The boss was missing. Now this kid too.
The whole scene was twisted with dread.
The next second
Thud!
He fell flat on the ground, hard.
Something had tripped him.
Scrambling, ignoring the pain, he whipped out his phone and flicked on the screen light.
Its glow revealed what had brought him down